The present invention relates generally to data processing. More particularly, the present invention relates to secure processors having encoded instructions.
Network devices such as computers and other data communications equipment are vulnerable to certain types of attacks that are implemented by causing the processor in the network device to execute malicious instructions in the form of machine-language instructions loaded into the network device by an attacker. For example, because the x86 processor is by far the most common type of processor in today's network devices, an attacker may simply assume that the target device is an x86 processor, and push x86 machine-language instructions into the processor of the network device after exploiting a flaw in the operating software stack. In the very likely event that the processor is an x86 processor, the processor unknowingly executes the machine-language instructions, thereby allowing the attacker to take control of the network device.